671 THE INTERNATIONAL STANDARD BIBLE ENCYCLOPAEDIA Captivity people, the Assyr monarch left Hoshea, the leader of the conspiracy, on the throne of Israel as the vassal of Assyria. In 727 BC Tiglath-pileser III died and was suc¬ ceeded by Shalmaneser IV. His reign was short and no annals of it have corae to 4. Of Shai- light. In 2 K 17 and 18, however, maneser IV, we read that Hoshea, relying upon 727-722 BC help frora the king of Egypt, thought the death of Tiglath-pileser a good opportumty for striking a blow for independence. It was a vain endeavor, for the end of the kingdom of Israel was at hand. The people were grievously given over to oppression and wickedness, wffich the prophets Amos and Hosea vigorously denounced. Hosea, in particffiar, was "the prophet of Israel's decUne and fall." Prophesying at tffis very time he says: "As for Saraaria, her king is cut off, as foam upon the water. 'The ffigh places also of Aven, the sin ot Israel, shall be destroyed: the thorn and the thistle shall corae up on their altars; and they shall say to the mountains, Cover us; and to the ffills, FaU on us" (Hos 10 7.8; cf vs 14.15). No less stern are the predictions by Isaiah and Micah of the doom that is to overtake Saraaria: "Woe to the crown of pride of the drunkards of Epffiaim, and to the fading flower of ffis glorious beauty, wffich is on the head of the fat valley of them that are overcome with wme" (Isa 28 1). "For the transgression of Jacob is all tffis, and for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the trans¬ gression of Jacob? is it not Samaria? .... There¬ fore I will make Samaria as a heap of the field, and as places for planting 'vmeyards" (Mic 1 5.6). No help came from Egypt. With the unaided and en¬ feebled resources of his kingdom Hoshea had to face the chastising forces of ffis sovereign. He was made prisoner outside Samaria and was most hkely carried away to Nineveh. Meanwffile the land was over¬ run and the capital doomed to destmction, as the prophets had declared. Not 'without a stubbom resistance on the part of her defenders did "the fortress cease from Epffiaim" (Isa 17 3). It was only 6. Samaria after a tffiee years' siege that the Captured Assjrrians captured the city (2 K 17 by Sargon, 5). If we had only the record of the 722 BC Hebrew ffistorian we should suppose that Shalmaneser was the monarch to whom fell the rewards and honors of the capture. Before the surrender of the city Shalmaneser had abdicated or died, and Sargon, only once mentioned in Scripture (Isa 20 1), but one of the greatest of Assyr monarchs, had ascended the tffione. From his numerous inscriptions, recovered from the ruins of Khorsabad, we learn that he, and not Shahnan¬ eser, was the king who completed the conquest of the revolted kingdom and deported the inhabitants to Assyria. "In the beginffing [of my reign]," says Sargon in ffis Annals, "the city Samaria [I took] with the help of Sharaash, who secures 'rictory to me [. . . . 27,290 people mhabiters of it] I took away captive; 50 chariots the property of my royalty, which were in it I appropriated. [. . . . the city] I restored, and more than before I caused it to be inhabited; people of the lands conquered by my hand in it [I caused to dweU. My governor over them I appointed, and tribute] and imposts just as upon the Assjrians I laid upon them." The Assyr Annals and the Scripture history support and supplement each other at tffis point. The sacred ffistorian describes the deportation as follows: "The king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes .... because they obeyed not the voice of Jeh theh God, but transgressed his covenant, even aU that Moses, the servant of Jeh, coraraanded, and would not hear it, nor do it" (2 K 17 6.7; 18 11.12). The re- 6. Depopu- population of the conquered territory lation and is also described by the sacred histori- Repopula- an: "And the king of Assyria brought tion of men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, Samaria and frora Awa, and from Hamath and Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the cffildren of Israel; and they possessed Saraaria, and dwelt in the cities thereof" (2 K 17 24). The fact that Sargon introduced foreign settlers taken in war into Saraaria is attested by mscriptions. That there were various episodes of deportation and repopu¬ lation in connection with the captivity of the Northern Kingdom appears to be certain. We have seen aheady that Tiglath-pileser III deported the population of the northern tribes to AssjTia and placed over the depopulated country governors of his own. And at a tirae considerably later, we learn that Sargon's grandson Esarhaddon, and his great-grandson Ashur-bani-pal, "the great and noble Osnappar," imported to the region of Samaria settlers of nations conquered by them ffi the East (Ezr 4 2.10). Of the original settlers, whom a priest, carried away by the king of Assyria but brought back to Bethel, taught "the law of the god of the land," it is said that "they feared Jehovah, and served theh own gods, after the manner of the nations frora araong whom they had been carried away" (2 K 17 33). The hybrid stock descended from those settlers is known to us m later history and in the Gospels as the Saraaritans. We must not suppose that a clean sweep was raade of the inhabitants of the Northem Kingdora. No doubt, as in the Bab captirity, "the 7. The Ten poorest of the land were left to be Tribes m 'rinedressers and husbandmen" (2 K Captivity 25 12). The numbers actuaUy de¬ ported were but a moiety of the whole population. But the kingdom of the Ten Tribes was now at an end. Israel had become an Assyr prorince, -with a governor estabUshed in Samaria. As regards the Golah—^the captives ot Israel in the cities of the Medes—^it must not be supposed that they became wholly absorbed in the population among whom they were settled. We can well believe that they preserved theh Israelitish tra¬ ditions and usages with sufficient clearness and tenacity, and that they became part of the Jewish dispersion so widespread tffioughout the East. It is qffite possible that at length they blended -with the exiles of Judah carried off by Nebuchadrezzar, and that then Judah and Ephraira became one nation as never before. The narae Jew, therefore, naturally carae to fficlude members of what had earlier been the Northern Confederacy of Israel as well as those of the Southern Kingdom to which it properly belonged, so that in the post-exilic period, Jehudi, or Jew, means an adherent of Judaism without regard to local nationaUty. //. Ofthe Southem Kingdom (Jadah).—The cap¬ tirity of .ludah was the work of the great Chaldaean power seated at Babylon on the Eupffiates. Wffile the Northern Kingdora had new dynasties to rule it in qffick succession, Judah and Jerus remained true to the House of Da-rid to the end. The Southern Kingdom rested on a ffimer foundation, and Jerus with its teraple and priesthood secured the tffione against the enemies who overtffiew Samaria for nearly a cent, and a half longer. Sargon, who captured Saraaria in 722 BC, was followed by raonarchs 'with a great narae as con¬ querors and builders and patrons of Ut., Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, Ashurbanipal. When Ashurbaffipal died in 625 BC, the dissolution of the Assyr Erapire